Amazon's billion-dollar opportunity in travel

Amazon would add roughly $600 million to operating profit if it could build an online hotel business even half the size of Expedia's hotel business.

Amazon has a long history of branching out from its core e-commerce business and successfully disrupting other industries. However, one of the few businesses Amazon has been unsuccessful in tackling has been the online travel industry, but Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak says Amazon may soon get serious about travel.

Morgan Stanley estimates that Amazon's advertising spend per transaction could be meaningfully lower than online travel leaders Booking Holdings and Expedia thanks to Amazon's proven ability to drive repeat and internal traffic on its platform.